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Thursday, January 03, 2008

The holidays are finally behind us, with the exception of the Super Bowl, which certainly isn’t a holiday if your live in Northern California, and probably will resemble the 14th day of lent for those of us with roots in Wisconsin.

I survived the holidays, in-laws and all, and I lived to write about it! Actually, everyone behaved as well as can be expected, and there was a lot of good food. Mostly rich and meat-laden good food. I am still getting over the effects of that.

I am going into the New Year, as usual, not knowing what in the heck I am doing. One thing I am sure of is that immediate prospects for turning the dollar are pretty weak. Time to focus on saving some money. This is where I get in touch with my inner tightwad through a lot of stuff I have learned over the years from the Simple Living Network and the New Roadmap Foundation.

It has been said that if Benjamin Franklin were alive today, he would say that a buck saved is about as good as a buck seventy earned, thanks to the myriad of taxes that we live with. In other words, not spending one dollar is about $1.70 you won’t have to earn. I have started some efforts in that direction this week.

Tightwad the First: I will take over housecleaning from maids we have been using. We first hired maids when both of us were working full-time, and money was more available than time. Dropping the maids will save about $170 per month. I did a full cleaning on Wednesday as a test and found it takes me about 4 hours to do a similar cleaning. I found and cleaned a lot of places the maids have been missing for about a year. I’ll only need to do a full cleaning once every other week, and I can split the job over more than one day. I can also do the laundry while cleaning. The pay-off works out to about $17 per hour after taxes, about $29 per hour before taxes. Besides, it was getting to be a pain keeping out of the maids’ way, and that was costing me about 1/3 of the time it takes me to do the job myself.

Tightwad the Second: I found a slow leak under the kitchen sink last night. I think I fixed it today (of course, as with all DIY projects, only time will tell). For the gear heads out there, all I had to do was reseal some joints where the faucet parts attach to the sink. I used plumber’s putty, which is, btw, way easier to use than silicon. In any event, I have protected the area from water damage if it still leaks, so if it isn’t fixed now, I’ll get it right next time. When I was making the big bucks, I would have only had time to call the plumber. That saved about $100, which is the typical cost of a house call from a plumber in our high cost region. The entire ordeal took under two hours, including internet research and a trip to the hardware store.

Tightwad the Third: I called the two professional associations with which I need to belong should I ever wish to return to my profession. The combined annual dues are about $1,300. Both associations allowed me a waiver of dues. Apparently the bylaws specify partial dues waivers for members with anticipated earned income under stated limits that are larger than what I expect to earn. That saved about $1,000. Now my only remaining professional expense for the year should be continuing professional education, which I should be able to complete for under $1,500, and about 20 hours of independent study. I am not yet ready to drop the profession, so this is the cost.

Well, beyond this business, I haven’t got a clue as to the direction of my life, except I am certain that to my last breath, I will maintain . . .